In the middle of the night, an obviously injured man enters the house of a well-known lawyer, explaining to him that he's his former schoolmate, chemist Jeff Carter, and showing him the contents of his large bag - which quite obviously HORRIFY the attorney. But he sits down and listens to Jeff's story, which he begins telling in a LONG flashback: Jeff, who's always been an altruist and wanting to do good to mankind with his work, is - as his colleagues as well as his wife tell him - the ideal 'object' for exploitation by his ruthless boss Graham, the head of a big pharmaceutics company. Graham takes Jeff's formulas, rushes them on to the market in order to make huge profits, and pays him peanuts for it - until one day, he wants to market Jeff's new 'miracle drug' for all kinds of diseases, although Jeff insists that it's not perfected yet and it would be irresponsible and dangerous to sell it as it is; Graham insists, and Jeff resigns.He gets work as an assistant at a drugstore; but that doesn't seem to please his pretty young wife Mary very much, because there his salary is even smaller than when he worked for reckless exploiter Graham - and then, one New Year's Eve, Graham comes to see Jeff in order to beg him to come back to the company; and meets Mary for the first time... Immediately, the scoundrel has got a scheme ready: he sends Jeff, who consents to work for him again, and his assistant Dave to South America, where, according to Jeff, the only missing ingredient for the 'miracle drug' can be found - and so he's got him out of the way for making love to Mary, and for copying his incomplete formula and marketing it in a big way. But THEN, just as Jeff and Dave have found the right formula, a big influenza epidemic breaks out back home, and people, including Jeff's little son Tommy, are being treated with Graham's useless 'medicine'...This is undoubtedly the heaviest, most dramatic and most cruel of the six "Inner Sanctum" movies - for it deals with one of the most cruel crimes: mass murder by false medication (a similar case as in "The Third Man"). And it shows the reckless capitalism and greed of those who 'play' with human lives in this way most drastically in the shape of Graham - we have to take our hats off to J. Carroll Naish for playing that skunk in such a convincing way that we actually HATE him to the core... And at the same time, the movie 'commits' a clear violation of the Production Code: 'The sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of the crime...' But see and judge for yourself...

Lon Chaney, Jr. plays an idealistic chemist who creates a drug that may cure influenza. His unscrupulous and greedy boss (J. Carrol Naish) wants to release the drug right away but Chaney insists on doing more tests to make sure its safe. Naish releases the drug on the market anyway with tragic results. You really shouldn't tick off Lon Chaney, Jr.The fifth of six Inner Sanctum movies from Universal starring a mustachioed Lon Chaney, Jr. This one has a somewhat troubled history as it was a remake of an earlier Universal film, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. The first film was based off of a play by Jean Bart. There was some dispute about whether Universal had the rights to do more than one adaptation of Bart's play. So this one was out of circulation for decades.As was often the case with the Inner Sanctum series, the cast is excellent. Chaney does some of his finest acting here. Legendary character actor J. Carrol Naish makes a particularly rotten villain. Lloyd Bridges, Milburn Stone, Addison Richards, and beautiful Brenda Joyce round out the cast. This is considered by many to be the best of the series. This may be because it has less in common with the others. There are some who don't appreciate the bizarre and quirky charms of the other films in the series. This one is more straightforward and less fantastic, so perhaps that's why it seems to have a better reputation. Regardless, it's a fine B movie that I happen to enjoy even if I wouldn't go so far as to call it my favorite of the bunch.

This is possibly the best of the "Inner Sanctums", though it's also not a typical one - being based on Jean Bart's impressive anti-war drama "The Man Who Reclaimed His Head" (already filmed by Universal in 1934 with Claude Rains; in retrospect, it's amusing to note that the remake starred the actor who had played Rains' son in THE WOLF MAN [1941]!). Still, even if the setting is effectively updated - the original had a pre-WWI backdrop - its dealing with the crooked marketing of an untried drug is not quite the same thing as the philosophical war-themed discussions which distinguished the play (and earlier film)! Again, we're supposed to believe Lon Chaney Jr. is something of a genius in his field - in this case, medical research - but he allows himself to be exploited by his unscrupulous boss J. Carrol Naish (who even has designs on his wife!). Chaney is typically flustered but Naish is an ideal villainous substitute for Lionel Atwill; Brenda Joyce, then, fills in for Joan Bennett as the heroine yearning for a fuller life but, ultimately, unwilling to sacrifice her domestic harmony to satisfy her own selfish ends.The pace is necessarily slow - there are no murders or detectives this time around - with Chaney recounting his tragic tale to a childhood friend, and the resolution rather skimps on the hero's particular 'crime' (which was certainly more explicit in the 1934 version, even if STRANGE CONFESSION itself was also known as THE MISSING HEAD!) - but, as I said, it's the most satisfying entry in the series (which, ironically enough, was the one to go unseen for decades due to a copyright dispute!).

The movie starts off with Jeff Carter picking up a tree and Xmas gifts for his family.He'd love to have dinner with his wife and little Tommy on Xmas eve, but he has to work for his mean boss.What is this?A Christmas Carol?No.It is a boring little flick about Carter's unfinished influenza cure released prematurely by Graham, his skunk of a boss.When little Tommy dies,Carter seeks revenge.The Inner Sanctum was a popular radio mystery show.A series of Universal films starring Lon Chaney was released to capitalize on its popularity. But the only mystery is how can you sit through this boring drivel.It isn't a mystery, just a confession.You know where this is going after the first ten painful minutes. If this is on your television, change the channel!